The Danger Of A Man Who Would Accept Another Person’s Nobel Peace Prize Medal And The Danger Of The People Who Voted For Him

The Danger Of A Man Who Would Accept Another Person’s Nobel Peace Prize Medal And The Danger Of The People Who Voted For Him

By

Leonard Zwelling

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/opinion/ice-shooting-germany-bystanders-history.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/world/americas/machado-trump-meeting-nobel-peace-prize.html

We are at the one-year mark of the second Trump Administration and we can be certain of a few things.

First, there is absolutely nothing between Trump and doing just about anything he wishes to do within our country and on the international scene. Congress can’t stop him. The Supreme Court won’t stop him. Even the integrity of the NATO alliance is of no concern to Trump as he has made it clear that he wants Greenland and aims to take it.

Second, he is not doing anything for the benefit of the American people, but rather for his own self-aggrandizement or his own pocketbook. He’s always asking the question “what’s in it for me?” He is also asking “why won’t you recognize me as great?”

The New York Times has estimated that Mr. Trump managed to rake in another $1.4B during his first year back in office through real estate deals, licensing of his name, and cryptocurrency. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html)

Third, Trump has no respect for the rule of law. In fact, he is convinced that he is the law. He does not differentiate between himself and the United States. He’s the ultimate narcissistic leader. L’Etat, c’est lui. Despite all of the hand waving and denials on the part of those who voted for him and had the intelligence and judgment to know better, the fact remains. He wants to be a dictator yet he was duly elected by the American people. How ironic! I wonder what the Founding Fathers would think. Trump is exactly what they were worried about when they were writing the Constitution and the Federalist papers.

Fourth, he will arrest anybody he wants to from immigrants, illegal or not, to political enemies with whom he wishes to get even. He has only two watchwords: transactionality (life is just one big series of deals) and revenge.

In the first attached piece from The New York Times on January 15, Shalom Auslander states the obvious. The political dynamic established by Donald Trump and the lack of any resistance to it by the other two branches of government combined with the willingness of the American people to re-elect him despite knowing exactly what he was going to do, is highly reminiscent of the dynamic that led to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 Germany. Sure, America was not emerging from a lost war like Germany was (or weren’t we, in Afghanistan and Iraq?), nor suffering an oppressive economy (then again…). Or maybe, what is happening here with the acquiescence of normal Americans to Trump’s policies and proclamations is exactly what happened in Germany. You disagree?

What kind of man (second attachment from the NYT) would accept the Nobel Peace Prize medal from the real winner, preening while doing so to convince himself that he, a man who targets small boats with drone warfare killing well over 100 non-combatants, deserves to get near such a prize? Only a truly narcissistic madman capable of horrific things would not shake his head no and turn the medal back to its rightful owner. Please remember that America is a country that, as recently as the war in which Hitler put his citizens in concentration camps, put its own Japanese citizens in concentration camps despite knowing these people were not a threat to the American war effort (listen to the great Rachel Maddow’s most recent podcast, Burn Order).

I am very sorry that all you psychoanalysts out there feel I am suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Donald Trump is a menace to the constitutional republic that is (for now) the United States of America. When a wannabe dictator has a do-nothing Congress and a gutless Supreme Court with which to work, he is capable of anything. And if the people, and the lawyers, and the academics tremble at his potential wrath, what is going to stop him?

For those of you who believe “this too will pass,” good luck with that. How many more Americans will need to be killed by federal officers in our own Blue Cities before Red America realizes that its cities are next.

Once an autocrat gets rolling, it’s very hard to stop him. I suggest Congress really start to do its job or after Trump gets through creating chaos in Venezuela and fear in Greenland, he may be coming for you, Congress. Oh, that’s right. On January 6, he did. Of course, if you’ve lost your rural hospital already, you understand.

Donald Trump is the most dangerous man to occupy the White House in my life time and that includes Richard Nixon. If America does not wake up soon, and push back really hard, but lawfully, as the people in Minneapolis are trying to do, you never know who will wind up in the next concentration camp. I know I’m worried that it will be me and my family.